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Stopping for tint when you work third shift

03-17-2015, 01:59 AM

I've only made a couple of tint stops and I did them when briefly on day shift. I'm wondering if the tint stop has a chance of holding up in a suppression hearing when it's made during night time hours. I feel like a defense attorney would have an easy time questioning the validity of the stop if you suspected a car's tint was too dark during the night. Have you ever been challenged in court on this personally? How did you respond and how did it go?

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I've articulated nighttime tint stops by mentioning how it was difficult to see lights on the opposite side of the vehicle through the allegedly tinted windows on the person's car. It's passed muster so far.

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I do it all the time and have not had any issues. If you don't have a tint reader, get one. I like the Tint Meter Enforcer from Laser Labs. It makes it nice to include the low VLT% in your report. Hard for to argue that yes, my tint was not legal and yes, my VLT% was extremely low, however the officer should not have known that because it was so dark outside.....

If it was dark outside it is even more of a reason that the stop was valid because it is that much harder to see when you have a dark tint on your windows at night. It's easy to articulate how you reasonably suspected (which is all you need at the time you decide to stop the vehicle) the tint was out of compliance even at night and recording the tint reading will keep you out of suppression hearings.

If you are on the fence about if the tint is legal or not when you stop it (but still reasonably suspect it is), run the meter first and confirm it. Checking the legality of the tint is the scope of your stop, so you don't want to start getting ID and looking for PC to dig further when it turns out the tint was borderline legal. Once you confirm the tint is legal, the detention is over. If you already got their ID, confirmed searchable probation and found some dope, you are going to have some issues. But if you check and it's confirmed illegal, then you can continue and the stop will hold up in court every time.

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I do it all the time and have not had any issues. If you don't have a tint reader, get one. I like the Tint Meter Enforcer from Laser Labs. It makes it nice to include the low VLT% in your report. Hard for to argue that yes, my tint was not legal and yes, my VLT% was extremely low, however the officer should not have known that because it was so dark outside.....

If it was dark outside it is even more of a reason that the stop was valid because it is that much harder to see when you have a dark tint on your windows at night. It's easy to articulate how you reasonably suspected (which is all you need at the time you decide to stop the vehicle) the tint was out of compliance even at night and recording the tint reading will keep you out of suppression hearings.

If you are on the fence about if the tint is legal or not when you stop it (but still reasonably suspect it is), run the meter first and confirm it. Checking the legality of the tint is the scope of your stop, so you don't want to start getting ID and looking for PC to dig further when it turns out the tint was borderline legal. Once you confirm the tint is legal, the detention is over. If you already got their ID, confirmed searchable probation and found some dope, you are going to have some issues. But if you check and it's confirmed illegal, then you can continue and the stop will hold up in court every time.

We aren't authorized to use tint meters in my department. We have tint cards which is literally like a business card; one side is white, the other has a piece of tint on it which is to be held next to a vehicle's window and compared. It's actually sometimes difficult to even tell during the day using a tint card. Not a fan of 'em.

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We aren't authorized to use tint meters in my department. We have tint cards which is literally like a business card; one side is white, the other has a piece of tint on it which is to be held next to a vehicle's window and compared. It's actually sometimes difficult to even tell during the day using a tint card. Not a fan of 'em.

Wow I can't believe you guys are restricted from actually even using a Tint meter. That's too bad they are great tools. Either way, I think you are good to go at night. It's obvious when you see a tinted window even at night.